Animal Planet to premiere new 'Whale Wars' series on November 7

By Reality TV World staff, 09/20/2008

Animal Planet has announced that it will premiere Whale Wars, a new docu-reality series that follow a conservation group's efforts to eradicate illegal whaling operations through the use of radical methods, on Friday, November 7 at 9PM ET/PT.

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Whale Wars' seven-episode season will document the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society's 2007-2008 "Operation Migaloo" campaign to rid the high seas of Japanese whaling by utilizing various aggressive techniques including ramming and disabling whaling ships, disrupting whale carcass processing, engaging in physical entanglement, and boarding and dispersing fleets of whale vessels.

"Whale Wars is an epic adventure that looks at the consequences of taking a stand on an issue," said Animal Planet president Marjorie Kaplan. "It's so important that Whale Wars calls Animal Planet its home. It's truly compelling television, and it's entertainment with a conservative message infused to its core."

Captain Paul Watson founded the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society in 1977 because he believed environmental activists had to go even further to eradicate whaling, poaching, shark finning, habitat destruction and purported ocean law violations than the Greenpeace group he had previously co-founded.

Some of the portions of the Sea Shepherd's most-recent campaign that will be included on Whale Wars will be two crew members being captured by a Japanese ship; Watson allegedly being fired upon by another Japanese whaling ship; and the various methods the campaign used in forcing the Japanese to fall nearly 500 whales short of its quota.

"Whaling has no place in the 21st century," said Watson. "Sea Shepherd will not stop until the killing ends.

Animal Planet began developingWhale Wars in February as part of a relaunching and rebranding effort built around a new more adult-targeted programming schedule that will include animal-themed reality shows and additional Meerkat Manor-like anthropomorphic series. It announced the series' pickup in July.

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